SES AI Corporation

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's SES AI fourth quarter 2024 business and financial results. My name is Jayla, and I'll be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. And I'd like to turn the conference over to our host, Kyle Pinkleton. You may proceed.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our conference call covering our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. Joining me today are Qi Chaohu, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Jing Nilas, Chief Financial Officer. We issued our shareholder letter just after 4 p.m. today, which provides a business update as well as our financial results. You'll find a press release with a link to our shareholder letter and today's conference call webcast in the investor relations section of our website at ses.ai. Before we get started, this is a reminder that the discussion today may contain forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on our predictions and expectations as of today. Such statements involve certain risks, assumptions, and uncertainties, which may cause our actual or future results and performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in these statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially Our current expectations include but are not limited to those detailed in our latest earnings release and in our SEC filings. This afternoon, we will review our business as well as the results for the quarter. With that, I'll pass it over to Chi-Chao.

Thanks, Kyle. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on our fourth quarter and fall year 2024 earnings call. Today, we are pleased to present an update on the new era for SES AI as we reap the benefits of our all-in-all AI strategy, deepen existing EV relationships, move to the next stage of our evolution to a revenue-generating company, and share our plans for additional revenue streams with new market expansion in drone robotics and battery energy storage systems, BESS. As you may have seen, we have made several announcements over the last several weeks, including that STS AI is reporting revenue for the first time in the fourth quarter. We are no longer a pre-revenue company and look forward to continuing on our commercialization path by growing revenue in 2025 and beyond. First, I would like to address the highlights in our EV space. Since the fourth quarter, we signed contracts totaling up to $10 million to develop AI-enhanced lithium metal and lithium ion batteries for EVs with two automotive OEM partners. These contracts solidify our relationships with our OEM partners and continue to demonstrate the value these partners see in the use of AI for battery material development. especially the value that an enhanced electrolyte can provide for both lithium metal and lithium ion batteries. Second, I want to address the important work we have accomplished in urban air mobility, or UAM, drones and robotics. In January, at the CES 2025 show, we unveiled an AI-enhanced 2170 cylindrical cell for humanoid robotics. Earlier in 2024, signed a significant purchase order with Data Blanket for drones for forest fire management and with SoftBank for HABS communications satellites. This was a game changer as these AI-enhanced 2170 cells are the first batteries to use an electrolyte discovered by SCS-AI's Molecular Universe effort, which maps the physical and chemical properties of the entire universe of small molecules suitable for battery electrolytes. 10 to the 11th molecules. Our human scientists and AI agent learned that there's great similarity between lithium metal and high silicon lithium ion cells in terms of electrolyte anode interfaces. And our development in lithium metal electrolytes could also address high silicon lithium ion challenges, especially swelling and cyclites. We are now in both lithium metal and high silicon lithium ion. 2170 is an industry standard format and is available on the large commercial scale. The electrical discovered through our molecular universe effort is a drop-in replacement. This allows us to have a capex light model through contract manufacturing and to deliver a high energy density and high power density cell for customers in humanoid robots, drones, EVs, power tools, and other applications. Third, SCS AI is planning to expand into a new and growing field, battery energy storage systems, BESS. Last month, we announced that SCS AI signed an MOU with AI specs targeting up to $45 million to provide up to 100 megawatt hours of advanced battery energy storage systems, BESS, solution with AI for safety first deployment at a crypto mining site in Texas. This relationship is the first of its kind for SAS AI, and we believe that this is something that can be replicated with additional partners in the future. This project will involve our battery safety platform, Avatar, which includes our AI for manufacturing and AI for safety solutions. Powering our commercial success are our two focus areas. Upstream Material Discovery, Molecular Universe, and Downstream Battery Safety, Avatar. In Molecular Universe, our collaboration with NVIDIA on GPU-enhanced computation chemistry software helped accelerate this effort to map the entire 10 to the 11th universe of small molecules from more than 8,000 years to just a few months. We have now mapped 10 to the 8th. 0.1% of the molecular universe. We think this is the world's largest single molecule density function theory database. And we're also mapping solution and interface levels. These unique proprietary synthetic data help train our AI model that will accelerate novel electrolyte discovery. As we have seen for lithium metal and high silicon lithium ion. and later even LFP cells for BSS and other chemistries. With Avatar, we have developed a new foundation model to monitor battery health and predict incidents before they happen. This AI-based model works in conjunction with conventional physics-based battery management system, BMS, but is agnostic to chemistry, form factor, emission profile, and currently has been pre-trained on manufacturing data and cycling data across a variety of cell chemistries, including NCM, LFP cathode, and high silicon graphite and lithium metal anode, and form factors including pouch, prismatic, and cylindrical, and mission profiles ranging from BSS to EV, drones, and robots. In closing, SESAI has seen some exciting advancements during the end of 2024 and at the start of 2025. especially with us recognizing revenue for the first time in our history. All in on AI is not only critical, but is the future. We see great things continuing going forward. Here are some of the things I see happening. The change in our business model. Originally, we envisioned CapEx heavy plants to manufacture cells for EVs and UAM at scale, and then offsetting some of the required costs through JVs. Now, our business model focuses heavily on selling our AI models and core battery materials, contract manufacturing of cells using our electrolyte, and selling of contract imported cells. A focus on hiring of AI scientists in sales and marketing teams to pursue greater expansion of revenue opportunities from 2025 to 2027. Continue evolution from a pre revenue easy focused battery technology company lever to one battery chemistry. To a company that can leverage its prior work, along with its Ai technology and Ai enabled electrolytes to generate revenue in a capex light model much earlier than anticipated and with an ability to tap to new. adjacent verticals that we believe will be much larger than EV. Thank you for your continued interest in SES AI, and now I'll turn it over to June for financial updates.

Good afternoon, everyone. I will discuss our financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024. I am pleased to share our financial results and provide insights into our physical health, strategic priorities, commercialization plans, and 2025 outlook. For the fourth quarter ended December 31st, 2024. Revenue milestone. We reported Q4 2024 revenue of 2 million, marking the beginning of our evolution into a commercialized and revenue generating business. This revenue was primarily driven by contracts with our automotive OEM partners to develop AI-enhanced lithium metal and lithium ion batteries for EV applications, and initial delivery of our lithium metal cells to our customers like SoftBank for HAPS and DataBlanket for drone applications. Importantly, this revenue comes with a 63% growth margin, demonstrating the strong value proposition of our technology and all-in on AI strategy. Operating expenses. Our GAAP operating expenses were $30.4 million for the quarter, primarily driven by research and development initiatives and general administrative costs. Cash flow. We utilized $12.3 million in cash flow operations and invested $0.2 million in capital expenditures during the quarter. Liquidity. We concluded the quarter with a strong liquidity position of $262.5 million. ensuring our ability to fund ongoing and future projects. For the full year 2024, we achieved a total cash usage in operations and capital expenditures of 78.3 million, below the low end of our previous guidance of 80 million to 95 million. This includes operational cash usage of 66.1 million and capital expenditures of 12.2 million. As we look ahead, SES AI is well positioned for continued growth and disciplined investment in 2025. The greater visibility we now have on revenue has allowed us to provide some guidance for 2025. As you know, this will be the first time that we are providing this outlook. Therefore, we're being conservative in our expectations and focusing on the full year outlook rather than any particular quarterly cadence of revenue or expenses. We intend to update this outlook during the year as needed. Revenue Outlook. We anticipate 2025 revenue to be between 15 million and 25 million, reflecting growth from our expanding partnerships and commercialization efforts. We expect to generate revenue from development of AI-enhanced lithium metal and lithium ion batteries for EV applications. Delivery of battery cells to UAM drones and robotics customers. And delivery of integrated battery energy storage systems with our AI solutions. Plan spending. We forecast total cash usage in operations and CapEx to be between 70 million and 80 million. Prioritizing R&D advancements, commercialization, and strategic market expansion with a capital light business model. cash management, our strong liquidity position extends our runway and continues to support our long-term vision with a focus on financial discipline and strategic investments. With our CapEx-like business model, we expect to maintain adequate liquidity well into 2028. We see tremendous organic and inorganic growth opportunities ahead of us. We are well capitalized to capture these opportunities in a disciplined fashion. particularly with additional funds from our projected revenue growth and or potential capital markets activity further enhancing our liquidity. 2024 was a transformative year for SESAI. Achieving our first revenue milestone with a positive growth margin is a pivotal moment that signals our evolution from a R&D-focused company to a commercial and revenue-generating business. With high margin revenue, growing partnerships, and disciplined financial management, we're excited about the opportunities ahead. We appreciate your continued support and confidence in SESAI. Thank you. Now I'll turn the call back to the operator.

At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, it is start followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, it is start followed by 2. Again, to ask a question, it is star one. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your headset before asking a question. I'll pause briefly here as questions are registered. Our first question comes from Winnie Dung with the company Deutsche Bank. Winnie, your line is now open.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Teacher, I was wondering if you can talk about the shifting strategies here, in particular, what led to this shift? And then it was mentioned, you know, that there was signing of contracts totally up to 10 million for two leading auto OEM partners. If you are able to review, are they the same OEM partners that, you know, SDS has GDA partners with? And how is it different from, you know, those, previous ones with Hyundai and Hyundai. Thanks so much.

Yeah, Winnie. So previously, we just focused on just lithium metal for EVs, right? And then I think our work in lithium metal, it wasn't just at the battery belt level. It was more fundamental. It was more at the material discovery level for the electrolyte. and then also at the lithium metal battery safety side. And then these two core, we noticed, and also the OEMs that we're working with noticed that we could actually apply these to lithium ion. And then once you expand to beyond just one technology, just one battery technology, and you can apply a platform to, actually two platforms, to multiple chemistries, then the addressable markets become much larger. So of course, I think anyone would just make this jump from a single technology in a single market to two platforms across almost every battery technology out there. So that was a very obvious jump, and I think quite exciting jump. And then in terms of the two OEMs, I think even guess, it's the two OEMs that we have been working with for a long time. And they saw this transferability from just a single chemistry in a single market every battery chemistry across multiple markets that they target, not just EVs. Obviously, EVs have been one of the most important ones, but also drones. They do drones. And then robotics, both of them do robotics as well, and then also urban air mobility. So yeah, that was the motivation for why we switched from just a single chemistry to multiple markets.

Thank you so much. I just want to follow up on the contract manufacturing. Were you able to reveal any sort of, you know, economics behind that? It's interesting that, you know, the gross margin was, you know, 63% in Q4, which was very impressive. You know, is this sort of like an initial type of metrics that we should look at and how would this evolve, I guess, heading into 2025?

Yeah, I think it's too early to address that. And that margin was actually a mix of the AI models, the service, as well as the actual selling of the sales. But going forward, in terms of the country manufacturing, I mean, our goal to do country manufacturing is to have a high margin. And I think it's well known that these next generation battery companies just cannot compete at scale with any of the large companies incumbent battery players. This is why we do country manufacturing to achieve high margin. But the actual numbers, that's going to evolve based on volume, based on the particular application and customers.

Got it. That's very helpful. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Thank you.

My next question comes from Brian Gordon with the company Water Tower Research. Brian, your line is now open.

Hey, everyone. First of all, congratulations on achieving revenue. It's a really significant event for the company. I did want to follow up on the gross margins, though. You know, it seems like there are, you know, two different ways that you guys are sort of transitioning the business model. One is, you know, kind of let's say selling software versus selling hardware. Could you talk a little bit about how you see, you know, both the revenue opportunity for that and, you know, how that could, you know, potentially impact margins going forward?

Yeah. Obviously, we want to sell just the software because that's a pure high-margin business. At the same time, for both the materials and the battery safety, it's hard to just sell the software without the hardware. The hardware is like a hook to get a customer, and then you sell the software on top of that. And the hardware, on the material side, we come to manufacture these cells, and the cells are like a carrier for our um materials and that demonstrate the the benefit and the power of this molecular universe af science software so initially it's going to be the margin is going to be a mix between the cells and the software but once we grow this this demand and then Then we do plan to shift to more of a pure software business. And same thing for avatar. The pure avatar itself is of course very high margin, but then it's hard to sell just a software to BSS. You want to attach it to a hardware. And that's why initially we, for example, in that partnership with AI specs, it will be the entire solution. It's the BSS hardware with the software.

So that definitely makes sense. Should we expect them going forward that the company will be able to layer on something like an ongoing subscription revenue as it's selling these batteries?

Yes, that is a plan. And then we have a few discussions with a few battery companies where we actually offer subscription to the models. For example, that map. that we show in the shareholder letter, that is a treasure map that actually tells any battery company or any company that needs to develop a battery where to look for in terms of new electrolytes. So that map, so we sell that map, we sell products discovered from that map, and we also sell this AI model that was used to create that map. That's the annual subscription that you mentioned.

Great. Thank you very much. And congratulations on the quarter. Thanks, Brian.

Our next question comes from Jed Dorshmeyer with the company William Blair. Jed, your line is now open.

Hi, Tisha. You have Mark Shooter on for Jed Dorsheimer. I'll echo those sentiments. Congratulations again on the quarter and the revenue outlook. The business is fundamentally different with multiple different revenue streams. So in that guide for the revenue, can you give a rough breakdown of where do you think that's coming from?

Yeah, so this year, roughly high level and we mentioned in the letter we expect bulk of this year to come from BSS and then the rest to come from a combination of the EV and drones and robotics just this year now next year and then going forward that could change got it okay and in that BESS the

application, you're providing the full stack. Did I hear that correctly? With contract manufacturing for the cells plus the pack integration and the BMF? Yes. Okay. Is that a difficult market to break into?

Good question. It depends on the market. It's a very fragmented market. And I think you have behind the meter and also in front of the meter. And then some parts of the market are obviously pretty dominated by the big players. And some parts are more fragmented. But at the core, in terms of the types of cells they use are actually quite common. And you see about four to five different types of cells being used across all these different parts of the market. And then so we break into the more fragmented ones and then the medium size. But then by doing that, we get access to all the data. And then these data So the manufacturing data, the formation data, these data we use to pre-train the avatar, and then we use the live cycling data from these to also train the avatar to monitor health. And the nice thing is these data come from the same cells that are used by the larger players. So once we break into the medium size and then gather data, train this avatar, this avatar can be used as a demo that we use to show the larger players.

Got it. That's very helpful. Last one for me regarding the drone applications. Where are your contract manufacturers and are any of your drone customers supply chain sensitive regarding the region?

Yeah. For now, they are mainly in Asia. And yes, the drone country manufacturers are sensitive. And then they would like us to move to a more US-based manufacturing. And then we do have plans to do that. And then we have a phase where we go through this Asia-based country manufacturer first, and then switch to a US-based.

Understood. Thanks, Tisha.

Thanks, Mark. At this time, I'd like to pass the conference back over to Kyle Pinkerton to answer a few questions. Kyle, you may proceed.

Thanks. As with past quarters, we solicited questions from investors prior to the call. We received a number of submissions, and we'll go through a selection of those submissions now. The first question is the performance limit today of cells with high silicon anodes is the stability of the electrolyte. With SES's new electrolytes and the new advanced silicon anodes, what is the expected specific energy density, cycling durability, and charge rates for 2170 cells made with these materials? What is the likelihood that these cells would be preferred for EV applications?

Yes, the high silicon anode lithium ion behave actually quite similar to lithium metal. And then, in fact, the higher the silicon, the more it behaves like a lithium metal from the perspective of this electrolyte anode interface. And so high silicon currently suffer from swelling and also gassing challenges. And that lead to short cycle life. And with this new electrolyte, we can significantly enhance the cycle life. And then how much improvement in cycle life really depends on the amount of silicon that's used. And if we go to 100% silicon, we actually expect to improve the cycle life. We actually expect to more than double the cycle life. improvement is actually higher as we increase the amount of silicon.

Great. The next question we have is, can competitors copy the new solvent your AI discovered? Is it patentable or just trade secrets?

Definitely they can. And in this industry, especially if you have something that works really well, people will copy. And so the only way to compete is the speed. And we try to focus more on the speed of innovation and not just the innovation itself. For example, that map that we showed in the shareholder letter, that's a very good example. And others, so we're not just finding a new electrolyte and then this new electrolyte or this new solvent, yes, if it works well, it will get copied. And that's just how it works in the industry. Anytime you have a new material, if it works well, it gets copied. And if it doesn't work well, then people won't copy it. But in our case, we're not just selling a new solvent. So each dot on the map is a solvent. We're selling the map. And this map, no one else has that. And the tool to create this map, to find this map, no one else has that. So we have the ability to know where these new solvents are for different applications. And this ability, for now, no one can copy that.

Thank you. Going down the list. Next question. As AI technology evolves, How is SES improving its AI models to enhance battery performance, safety, and manufacturing efficiency?

So the cost of AI has come down a lot. And this has allowed us to train these models, both large language models and foundation models, with more data and this ability. And we're getting more data. Longfei Li, Ph.D.: : Both actual data from actual battery cycling and also a lot of synthetic data they see data that denied this before, especially for the molecule properties and and the more data we have, and the more data we use to train this models, it gets more sophisticated so so. Longfei Li, Ph.D.: : And also the cost and efficiency have improved a lot so it's now.

uh possible to actually run training on these massive database in a much more cost effective way than before thank you we'll do one more from the pre-submitted questions um evs are the number one market for 2170 cells if scs has a better one what is the prognosis for selling these into automotive seems the high silicon version might be an earlier candidate than lithium metal cells.

So the high silicon and lithium metal are sort of parallel tracks. And then previously we focused just on lithium metal and then now we are actually improving the cycle life of high silicon. So we're doing both. And then, um, and we already have been working with three OEMs quite closely. And, um, um, And I think a few quarters earlier, we mentioned that there were OEMs that used 2170 cylindrical cells that we did not address because we only made pouch. So now our pouched lithium metal, we use that to address OEMs that use pouch. And then our 2170 cylindrical high silicon, we use that to address OEMs that we did not address before because we didn't have that form factor. And also, same thing for A lot of the OEMs that make EVs also make robotics, and this 2070 really allows us to address a really big market that we did not address before.

Excellent. Thank you. With that, I'll turn it back over to the moderator for a conclusion of the call.

That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and enjoy the rest of your day.